Razor-blade stropper.



P. D. JONES.

RAZOR BLADE STROPPER.

APPLICATION FILED SEPT. 19, 1911.

Patented Jan. 6, 1914.

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ID, Jo/w;

F. 1). JONES. RAZOR BLADE STROPPER.

APPLICATION FILED SEPT. 19, 1911.

1 $383,447. I Patented Jan. 6, 1914.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

"UNITED STATES PATENT @FEFIOE.

FLOYD D. JONES, OF KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, ASSIGNOR TO JONES RAZOR AND MANU- FACTURING COMPANY, OF KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, A CORPORATION OF MISSOURI.

RAZOR-BLADE STROPPER.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, FLOYD D. JONES, a citizen of the United States, residing at Kansas City, in the county of Jackson and State of Missouri, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Razor-Blade Stroppers, of which the following is a speclfication.

This invention relates to razor blade stroppers, and has for its object to produce a device of this character by which an ordinary blade or a safety razor blade can be quickly and efficiently stropped without any possibility of the strop being nicked or cut by the blade.

A further object is to produce a stropperv for movement back and forth upon a strop, equipped with a blade holder and means whereby the blade holder shall be caused to hold the blade in a rearwardly inclined position when the stropper is moved forward upon the strop and in a forwardly inclined position when the stropper is moved rearward upon the strop.

A further object is to produce a device of the character named whereby the stropper, the instant the direction of movement is reversed, reverses the position of the blade before the latter begins to slide upon the strop in the sharpening operation.

With these objects in view and others as hereinafter appear, the invention consists in certain novel and peculiar features of construction and organization as hereinafter described and claimed; and in order that it may be fully understood reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings, 1n which- Figure 1, is a side elevation of a razor blade stropper embodying my invention. Fig. 2, is a top plan view of the stropper. Fig. 3, is a section on the line IIIIII of Fig. 2. Fig. 4:, is a similar sect-ion with the movable parts at the middle of their stroke or movement. Fig. 5, is a section on the line V-V of Fig. 4. Fig. 6, is a fragmentary perspective View of the frame of the stropper, to more clearly show certain features thereof. Fig. 7 is a vertical'section of a modified form of the device on the line VII-VII of Fig. 8. Fig. 8, is a vertical section on the line VIIIVIII of Fig. 7 Fig. 9, is a detail perspective view of a safety razor blade holder adapted for use if desired, with the stropper.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed September 19, 1911.

Patented J an. 6, 1914:.

Serial No. 650,235.

In the said drawings, 1 indicates the frame of the stropper, the same consisting of a rectangular bottom 2, provided with upturned parallel sides 3. The bottom is provided with a keyhole slot 4: for a purpose which hereinafter appears, and the sides are stamped outward centrally of their length at 5, to provide vertical grooves 6. Paralleling but preferably shorter than the sides are guideways 7 preferably produced by rightangle shaped tongues 8, stamped from the bottom 2, as shown clearly in Figs. 5 and 6.

9 is a reciprocatory frame fitting on the bottom between the guideways and the sides 8, consisting of vertical walls 10, provided with inturned foot flanges 11, and transverse rods 12, connecting the upper corners of the walls, and journaled on said rods are antifriction rolls 13, the foot flanges fitting in the guides to retain the reciprocatory frame down upon the bottom of the main frame 1.

The walls of the reciprocatory frame are provided with substantially V-shaped or double-cam slots 14, for the purpose of effecting upward and downward movement of a cross rod 15, fitting at its ends in the vertical grooves 60f the sides of the main frame. Paralleling cross rod 15 and secured at its ends in upwardly projecting lugs 16 at the center of the reciprocatory frame, is a rod 17, which is disposed in a lower plane than and at the same distance from the antifriction rolls 13, and journaled on said rod 17 is an antifriction roll 18. Pivoted on rod 17 between the lugs 16 and the ends of the anti-friction roll 18, is a pair of rock plates 19, provided with slots 20, extending radially of said rod 17 and receiving the cross rod 15 at the inner sides of the slots of the reciprocatory frame, and secured to and movable with the rock plates is a substantially isosceles-triangle shaped holder 21, the said holder and rock plates being preferably stamped from a single piece of sheet metal, the longitudinal margins of which are juxtaposed at the apex of the triangle, and adapted to be sprung apart when a razor blade is slipped between them, it being noticed that the holder is disposed at the opposite side of rod 17 from the radial slots 20 of the rock plates.

An ordinary razor blade can be slipped into this holder and the same is true of a safety razor blade, though it is preferred when a blade of the last-named type is stropped, that it first be slipped between the clamp arms of a substantially T-shaped holder 22, see Fig. 9, made from sheet metal and provided at one end with an extension 23 constituting a handle for convenience in slipping a holder containing a safety razor blade into the holder 21 or withdrawing such safety blade holder from the holder 21. The detachable holder 22 is so formed as to obtain a more extended and therefore reliable grip on a thin safety razor blade than the holder 21, the latter having only a narrow gripping contact with the razor blade of the thin type under consideration, whereas the ordinary razor blade is held firmly in position by the holder 21, because it bears against the arms of the holder near the base of the latter, as indicated in Fig. 1.

To manipulate the stropper, a handle 24: is provided with a threaded opening 25, at one end and screwed. into said opening is a headed bolt 26 having a short neck 27 between the threaded portion of the bolt and its head, the said neck being of rectangular form in cross section. To secure handle 24: firmly to the stropper, the head of the bolt is slipped up through the circular portion of the keyhole slot 4 from below the frame and then the handle is adjusted until the neck of the bolt fits non-rotatably in the narrow portion of said slot. The bolt thus fastened non-rotatably, the handle is turned until it and the head of the bolt are clamped tightly against opposite sides of the bottom of the frame, as shown clearly in Figs. 3 and 4.

To secure a strop S in position, one end is slipped down between one of the rolls l3 and roll 18, and then brought up between the latter and the other roll 13, one end of the strop being attached to a hook and the other end being held in the hand of the operator. The handle 24: is then grasped to slide the stropper back and forth upon the strop.

Assuming that the parts originally occupy the position shown in Fig. l, in which it will be seen the edge of the blade is resting upon the upper side of the strop and that the stropper is moved in the direction indicated by the arrow, same figure, it will be apparent that the rolls tend to turn in the direction indicated by the adjacent arrows, the friction between the reciprocatory frame and strop being greater than that between said frame and the main frame and therefore holding the reciprocatory frame at the limit of its movement to the left, in which position it remains until the stroke of the stropper to the right is ended. In this connection it will be noticed that the blade holder also inclines to the left and remains in such position during the stroke of the stropper to the right, because the cross rod 15 is held in its elevated position by the lower edge of the right hand arm of the slot 14- as shown most clearly in Fig. 3, and therefore holds the blade holder in the position explained by reason of its engagement with the bifurcated ends of the rock plates 19. As the said stroke of the stropper ends and pressure is applied on the handle to reverse the movement of the stropper on the strep, said cross rod, by reason of the frictional engagement between the reciprocatory frame and the strop, moves downward in the right hand arm of slot 14 and upward to the extremity of the left hand arm of said slot, the said rod in this movement swinging the blade holder on pivot 17 from the position shown in Fig. 1, until it inclines to the right and the edge of the blade again rests upon the strep, the reciprocatory frame remaining stationary by reason of its frictional engagement with the strop, until the blade-carrying holder has attained its new position. it will be noticed that during the movement of the main frame and the rocking ot' the blade-carrying holder, the latter at one time occupies the intermediate position shown in Fig. 41, at which time the cross rod is disposed at the most depressed portion of the \l'-shaped slot in the reciprocatory frame. It will thus be seen that at the end of each stroke, the reciprocatory frame remains stationary with respect to the strop until the position of the blade holder has been reversed, after which the entire stropper remains in fixed relation to the strop until the particular stroke of the stropper as a whole is ended, and that because of this fact there is never movement of the stropper as a whole while the blade is pointing in the direction of such movement. It will thus be seen that it is impossible for the strop to be cut by the blade during the stropping operation, and this is true without regard to whether the strop is held stretched tightly or is held loosely so that it can sag downward between its ends. In fact the blade can be stropped by simply holding the stropper by its handle and pulling first on one end of the strep and then on the other so as to draw the same in one direction and then in the reverse direction. This method of sharpening is not preferred, however, because it can not be performed with the same rapidity as where one end of the strop is fixed and the stropper is slid first in one direction and then in the other. It will be noticed that the V-shaped slot is wider at its apex than at any other point and this is so simply to accommodate strops of different thicknesses between the cross rod 15 and the roll 18. As a convenient provision for slipping rod 15 in or removing it from position, one side of the main frame is provided with an opening 15, and said opening is closed after the rod is placed in position by a short plug 15", as shown.

Referring now to Figs. 7 and 8, it will be seen that the tongues forming the guideways 7 terminate in upwardly projecting rack-bars 28 and that the blade holder is provided with cog segments 29 engaging the rack bars, this engagement between the said parts under reverse movement of the main frame effecting a reversal in the position of the blade holder before the recip-v rocatory frame begins to move as and for the purpose set forth in connection with the preferred construction embodied in Figs. 1 to 6 inclusive.

From the above description it will be apparent that I have produced a razor stropper embodying the features of advantage enumerated as desirable, and I wish it to be understood that while I have illustrated and described the preferred embodiment of the invention I do not wish to be restricted to the exact details of construction shown and described as obvious modifications will suggest themselves to one skilled in the art.

I claim:

1. A razor blade stropper, comprising a pair of relatively reciprocatory frames, one of said frames having guiding means for engaging a strop, blade-holding means pivoted upon one of said frames, and means slidably engaging both of said frames and said blade-holding means and acting to impart a rocking movement to the latter when one of said frames is reciprocated relatively to the other.

2. A razor blade stropper, comprising a pair of relatively reciprocatory frames, one of said frames having guiding means for engaging a strop, blade holding means pivoted upon one of said frames, and a cross bar mounted to slide in both of said frames in directions substantially at right angles to each other, said cross bar also having a slidable connection with said blade holding means, whereby a rocking movement is imparted to the latter when one of said frames is reciprocated relatively to the other.

3. A razor blade stropper, comprising a main frame, a rod extending across said frame and guided at its ends thereon, and movable toward and from the plane of the face of the frame, a reciprocatory frame mounted on the main frame and movable longitudinally thereon and engaging said rod to raise and lower the same in each of the reciprocatory movements of said frame, and a blade holder pivoted on said reciprocatory frame and adapted to be rocked by said rod to opposite sides of a vertical plane in successive movements of said rod toward the plane of the face of the main frame.

4. A razor blade stropper comprising a main frame having vertical grooves at its opposite sides, a reciprocatory frame carried thereby and having side walls rovided with slots, the bottom walls of w ich diverge upwardly, a pair of rods connecting the upper corners of opposite sides of said reciprocatory frame and a rod connecting said sides centrally of their length and in a plane below that of the first-named rods, a pair of rock platesmounted on said central rod and provided with longitudinal slots in their lower ends, a blade holder connecting said plates at their upper ends, and a rod extending transversely and through said slots of the rock plates and the reciprocatory frame and into the grooves of the main frame.

In testimony whereof I aflix my signature, in the presence of two witnesses.

FLOYD D. JONES.

Witnesses:

HELEN G. RoDoERs, G. Y. THORPE.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Yatents, Washington, D. G. 

